


Superman: Seeker of Knowledge

by Magfrump



Category: Superman - All Media Types
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-22
Updated: 2018-11-22
Packaged: 2019-08-27 13:36:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16703617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Magfrump/pseuds/Magfrump
Summary: Various concepts from classical philosophy, presented as choices and experiences in the world of Superman and the Justice League.Migrated from ffnet on 11/21/18 because I found a fourth chapter I had written a while back.





	1. Federated Identity

The first thing I remember was him looking down at me. The explosion is a blur, so is the evacuation. A crush of bodies and terror.

But there was a sudden clarity when he appeared. He stopped the girder falling, straightened the building like it was a tower of Jenga blocks. Then he turned and hovered for a moment, surveying the crowd. Or maybe just letting us look back at him. Everyone stopped, silent. I noticed myself holding my breath.

His eyes settled on me.

"I need you to make sure everyone gets home. Can you do that?"

I nodded. He flew off.

Some people started to give in to fear again. I could hear them asking why he would leave us. Everybody knew there were other buildings hit, but with him here it felt safe. Without him...

I looked at my hands, thinking about the hasty promise I'd made to the legendary boy scout, and I noticed that today's sign in sheet had wound up in my hands on the way out--I must have grabbed it by happy accident. I had a list of everyone who'd been on our floor before the explosion.

People started to murmur and mill about. Some were on the verge of panic. Several people were looking at me, as though I had some power to make decisions that they lacked.

Dorian stood next to me, fixated on the edge of the sky where He had flown away. Dorian whispered, "Why did you leave us?"

"He didn't." I whispered back. My voice rose to a shout. "Everybody settle down. I have the sign-in roster. We're going to do a head count, then make sure everyone has a ride home or to the hospital. If you're injured, get to my left. If it hurts to move, find a buddy or Dorian here will come help you. If you drove to work today, on my right. Work out how many passengers you can take, which direction you're going." People were listening to me, back to being still and silent.

"Move, people! He trusted us to take care of this and we aren't going to let him down!" I knew both statements were true as I said them. In that small moment of acknowledgement Superman had given me the authority I needed. Just as he had identified load-bearing braces to stabilize the building, he identified load-bearing personalities to stabilize the aftermath.

It was a strange feeling when I first realized this--that I was a tool to him. An instrument of his will. People asked me how it felt, later, when I talked about it with my friends and with my therapist. They asked me if I felt used. They asked me what it meant for free will in general, or for the human species in particular, that this alien god can see us for who we are, predict our actions, and use us.

When I was seventeen, I got my driver's license. After I got home from the test, my father handed me the keys to his pickup truck and asked me to bring back some nails and two by fours so we could build a bird cage. He knew exactly what I would do. He told me what to do, in so many words. But it was also the first time he let me drive the truck alone.

It felt like growing up. It felt like being trusted.

It felt like we had all thought Superman was the only adult in the room, and we were scared children. But even if we were scared children, and compared to him we certainly are, he trusted us. He trusted me.

The explosion took our free will away, took away all the decisions we had planned to make for the day. Supervillains took our free will away. The trauma of being alive took our choices and our agency from us.

Superman gave me my choices back.


	2. Zeno

There she was, falling.

Another "accident" at LutherCorp. Lots of these recently.

Lex was testing him. It was clear, learning his capabilities little bits at a time, with what Luthor considered small risks. Small fries.

Someone's life.

It wasn't a small risk, not to Clark.

She was falling, and he was getting closer.

Half the distance past.

Halfway there again.

Half the rest of the way, and half the rest of the way, and half the rest of the way.

Time slowed down for Clark as he approached. Couldn't go too fast, or he'd break her neck. Couldn't go too slow, or he wouldn't make it.

So time slowed down, and he approached in that slow time, always slowing, always slowing, until he could orchestrate from nanosecond to nanosecond, moving his body into the position and speed and acceleration necessary to rescue her. To support along her spine as it twisted with the deceleration.

Nanosecond to nanosecond, femtosecond to femtosecond, halfway there.

Gently nudging her hands so her arms wouldn't pull out of her shoulder sockets.

Halfway there.

A touch on the base of her feet, impersonal and designed to hold pressure, so that her legs would only shake within her hips' range of motion.

Halfway there.

And always half of the task remaining.

Halfway there.

And then it was over.

He was riding up into the sky easily, and she was in his arms, and she had stopped screaming, he had forgotten about the screaming until it stopped. And she gasped, and she saw the city around them from the sky, and the wind tossed her hair around until she couldn't see. And she fainted.

It always took so long, it felt endless. Like the last half would never come, like the relief of the float upward was so far out of reach.

But no matter how many halves of the distance he crossed, eventually there was one too small. Even for superman, there were distances too small.

 

"Have you ever heard of Zeno's paradox, Clark?"

"Yes, Jimmy. I have."

"There's an old joke; you put a mathematician and a plumber on one side of a room, and a beautiful woman on the other. You tell them they can cross half the distance to her as many times as you want. The mathematician is horrified. He says they'll never reach her. The plumber shrugs, says 'you could get close enough.'" Jimmy Olsen flashed a famous, dorky smile. "Mathematicians, right?"

Clark looked him in the eye, smiled and nodded. "It's a good joke Jimmy."

And he meant it.


	3. Anselm and Euthyphro

"Congratulations on your Pullitzer, Clark! I think everyone knew it was coming to you for a while."

"Aw shucks, Mister Wayne."

"Please, call me Bruce."

"Alright, Bruce, if you insist. I hope it's alright that my pal Jimmy Olsen tagged along. He was rather insistent."

"Well gee Mister Wayne, it isn't every day you get to meet a real famous billionaire! Such an honor!"

Bruce couldn't help but smile at the kid's face, covered in equal parts freckles and awe.

"Of course, Clark! It's your day after all, everything's my treat."

"I got a raise, Bruce, you don't have to..."

"Of course I do. I wouldn't even let them show you the bill. Anyway! I picked up a copy of the Daily Planet to check out your writing that everyone's been raving about. I guess Lois got the front page this time, though, eh?"

He tossed the paper down on the table. A big picture of Superman, standing over a man coming out of the driver's seat of a car and dropping his cell phone graced the front page.

SUPERMAN SAYS DON'T CALL AND DRIVE  
LECTURES MOTORISTS AFTER AVERTED ACCIDENT.

Clark smiled sheepishly.

"I remember it as being a bit more of an admonishment than a lecture."

"But it's good advice, isn't it Clark? Talking on your phone while driving is dangerous!"

Bruce nodded. "It's not a problem for me, since I have a hands-free, and Alfred usually drives. But maybe Superman should go on a life advice lecture circuit!" He shot a wry grin at Clark.

At this, Jimmy perked up.

"He sure should! Golly, I'd love to get advice from the man of steel himself!"

"Don't run yourself out of breath, kid!"

"But Mister Wayne, Superman is just so swell! He's gotta know how to do all sorts of things! Stay in shape, get a job, talk to girls, fix the economy! We'd all be so much better off if we could just learn from him!"

A worried frown crossed Clark's face, but Bruce retained a playful smile.

"So you think we should listen to him because he's Superman?"

"Well, gee, yeah I guess! He's super, so his advice must be super too!"

"But Jimmy," Clark picked up, not quite interrupting. "Surely you remember Bizarro! Being super-powered didn't make him give good advice, that's certain!"

Jimmy frowned at this. "Bizarro isn't Superman. I guess he's sort of like Superman, but just having powers doesn't make him Superman. Superman is super because he's the best at everything! Because he's such a swell guy! He's the best and that's just what Superman is."

Jimmy nodded with this, finally satisfied.

"So what are you saying, that Superman is the definition of good? That no matter what he does, it's right?"

Bruce's smile faded slightly, and Clark shot him a worried look and interjected.

"When Superman got hit by that red kryptonite meteor he went crazy, surely he wasn't in the right, then!"

Jimmy frowned again. "I guess batman was the good guy that time, taking Supes out to help him."

Clark breathed a small sigh of relief.

"So Superman isn't totally infallible, then."

"Gee, I guess not."

"Well I'm glad-if we had to take all our advice from Superman it would have dire consequences for the world of fashion." Bruce's playful smile returned.

"Maybe what you meant, Jimmy, was that Superman tries to be the best person he can. And to the extent that he succeeds, we should try to do the same things-helping people and fixing things that are broken. Protecting the innocent." Clark tried to explain.

Jimmy nodded hesitantly, and Bruce picked up.

"So it's the impulse to do good that makes Superman Super, not the powers that make him good. But you must admit that even if Superman's powers seem pretty mysterious, we haven't had much time to study them yet. On the other hand that impulse to good, the study of morality, humans have studied that for millennia and the answers STILL seem pretty mysterious."

"Huh." Jimmy leaned back, considering this.

"So maybe when Batman isn't as strong as Supes, it's harder for him to figure out how to make everything right, and that's why not everyone likes him all the time."

Bruce grimaced slightly at this, but nodded agreement.

"And since most people don't have all of Superman's powers, it'd probably be rough for him to give them advice." Jimmy finished the thought.

Clark cleared his throat.

"I think our food is about to get here. I hear the roast duck is quite good, wouldn't you say, Bruce?"

"Nothing but the best for my guests. Or, as close as you can get to the best in Metropolis."


	4. Republic

Another meteor joined the dozens in the sky, burning a bright red and filling the afternoon sky with a bloody haze.

"It'll be okay," Superman touched a young boy gently on the chin with his left hand, his right supporting a thirty foot section of aluminum alloy wall. He placed the wall firmly into the ground just as the next wave of debris burst down the street, so it cascaded around the survivors he had found so far. Three makeshift walls now surrounded them in an oasis of stillness amidst the winds and concrete rain from the impacts across the city.

From thousands of feet away, Kal heard Batman's voice. "Next landing will be at a 78 degree angle; the fallout will land on you if you're not careful. Might want a roof." Superman shot away again, peeling the side off a fallen building which would still be structurally stable, then began melting the sides into his walls to solidify the structure. A moment later he heard struggling breaths and dove into the building to withdraw a handful more workers who survived the fall. Depositing them gently in the midst of his shelter, he flashed off in a blur to the next falling building; easing it gently to the ground as the lower support beams were crushed by another meteorite.

"Diana, we're going to need you to focus on the third quadrant. Break them up before the next few come down." Bruce's voice sounded over the comm; a clearer signal than they'd had in the past. Diana made a note of the success of this project-Clark would be happy that his precision had contributed. Pushing herself from the ground she tossed the lasso of truth toward the largest of the new meteors, and used the grasp it provided to swing herself into the path of a smaller rock, slicing it apart with her sword, then pulling the first toward a third so that each shattered, and her lasso was freed to seek another target. Rock after rock shattered before her, turning her into a veritable shield against the heavens. She moved in an efficient pattern, but against the entire shattered remains of bizarro world it took her entire concentration to keep up with the pace of extraterrestrial jetsam. Batman's direction kept her in the densest areas of meteors nearest the densest areas of population-a calculation she could ill afford to waste time making herself.

A sudden shift in the air currents alerted her to a movement in her blind spot-a sufficiently large chunk of one of the meteors she had destroyed remained intact, and on a dead course for the shelter Kal-el had begun building for those unlucky enough not to have been evacuated.

As she turned and begun to growl at Bruce, she heard his direction. "No. Keep moving forward." It took her half a breath to trust him. Too long. She would have to make up the time.

A blue and red flash flew behind her-it almost looked like a bird perching for a moment, but it was Superman, his frost breath pulling the meteor's energy away and a few delicate blows hollowing the fragment into a dome which he laid quickly but tenderly atop his shelter. As Wonder Woman returned to her work he was already raising further walls, collecting more survivors, keeping everyone safe.

If she had been in charge from the beginning, the League might have defeated Bizarro more quickly. If Batman had made the call, perhaps the planet would not have been destroyed and the current impact could have been avoided. But this had been Kal's call-Clark's call.

The shelter on the ground quickly became a castle. Layers of re-purposed skyscraper and fragments of bizarro world's crust built up around the shelter in avenues and promenades. As the protected area grew it incorporated as many murals as could be salvaged and a handful of buildings transported intact into the area. The ground was smoothed out and moments later, once Superman and Green Lantern joined Wonder Woman and diverted the rest of the debris, the shelter roofs and domes began moving to be used as further material for roadways. What might have been a crater instead became a work of architectural art-a mishmash of historical buildings, street art, and elegant, walkable intersections. Once construction began and electricity and plumbing could be reconnected, this section would be inhabitable again almost immediately.

Because the task of the Justice League isn't to fight enemies or defend the earth, however much Diana cherished this part. The task of the Justice League wasn't to identify threats or coordinate power, whatever Bruce argued whenever he deigned to show his face.

The task of the Justice League was to let people live their lives.

Superman was already gone, and amidst the survivors Clark Kent mingled, interviewed, administered first aid, laughed with children. High above the Justice League finished the encounter, but Clark Kent didn't publish a story about superheroes. He published a story about reporters, businessmen, politicians, scientists, athletes, families, pilots, police, about survival and about a world that is too big to understand, and about the normal people whose job is to fill that world with life.


End file.
